FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 21, 2021
Contact: Prudence Robertson, [email protected]
Pro-Abortion House Democrats’ Spending Bills Too Extreme to Pass Senate
Washington, D.C. – Today U.S. Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) sent a joint letter to Senate Appropriations Committee leaders urging them to preserve the Hyde Amendment, longstanding federal policy that prevents forced taxpayer funding of abortion on demand. The letter reads in part:
“Recent public polls show almost 60% of Americans oppose or strongly oppose using taxpayer dollars to support abortion. Both Democrat and Republican presidents have signed the Hyde Amendment into law. It has passed through both Democrat and Republican-controlled Congresses, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1980. Repealing this provision would eliminate over 40 years of bipartisan precedent.”
In response, the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) praised the senators in a statement:
“We thank Senators Manchin and Wicker for reaffirming strong bipartisan support for the Hyde Amendment after pro-abortion House Democrats stripped Hyde and other key pro-life policies from their spending bills. Their pro-life constituents and countless Americans will thank them, too,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “For more than 40 years, the Hyde family of pro-life policies has kept taxpayers out of the abortion business – with the original Hyde Amendment alone saving nearly 2.5 million lives during that time. Forcing taxpayers to be complicit in the destruction of innocent life by funding abortion on demand through birth is abhorrent. House Democrats’ bill is too extreme to pass the Senate and they push a radical agenda at their own political peril.”
Last week pro-abortion Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee blocked a pro-life Republican effort to restore the Hyde Amendment and other pro-life protections eliminated from spending bills. President Biden’s previously released budget also gutted the decades-old, bipartisan Hyde Amendment and would force taxpayers to fund abortion on demand through birth.
In June SBA List launched a six-figure digital ad campaign targeting two vulnerable U.S. senators and six U.S. House members in competitive districts to expose their pro-abortion extremism.
Recent polling shows 77% of Americans oppose using taxpayer dollars to promote abortion overseas, and 58% oppose using taxpayer money to fund abortions in the United States.
Earlier this year, more than 60 pro-life leaders sent a letter to congressional leadership urging them to fight for the Hyde Amendment and other similar longstanding pro-life riders during the appropriations process. Learn more at sbalist.org/hyde.
SBA List is a network of 900,000 pro-life Americans nationwide, dedicated to ending abortion by electing national leaders and advocating for laws that save lives, with a special calling to promote pro-life women leaders.
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